Science
News: It has been difficult to study the causes of deafness
because the inner ear is well-protected by dense bone and is
located near crucial blood vessels and nerves. Now Konstantina
Stankovic of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston
and her colleagues have used
two-photon
microscopy to create detailed images of the inner ears of
mice. For their study, they compared normal mice with mice that
had been subjected to two hours of 160-dB
soundâmdash;a level comparable to the roar of
power tools. The resulting images provided clear pictures of
the hair cells in the inner ear, which detect sound vibrations.
In the mice subjected to the noise, whole areas of those cells
had been destroyed. Stankovic hopes that the images created
will help with the placement of cochlear implants, which can
scrape and damage existing inner-ear hair cells. Stankovic's
group has also created a small, battery-like device that could
power implants of various sorts and that would also benefit
from the new placement technique.
